The Economist - USA (2022-02-12)

The Economist February 12th 2022 United States 23

Carjacking

Crime and no punishment

I

n a citywithanaverageofovertwomur­

dersa day,thekillingofeight­year­old

MelissaOrtegaintheLittleVillageneigh­

bourhoodofChicagoinlateJanuarystill

causedshock.Thegirl,whohadcometo

ChicagofromMexicowithherfamilyless

thana yearbefore,wasstruckbybulletsap­

parentlyintendedfora youngmanemerg­

ingfromashopnearwheresheandher

motherwerewalking.The16­year­oldboy

whohasbeenchargedwiththemurder,

EmilioCorripio,wasonprobation,having

pleadedguiltytotwochargesofcarjacking

andbeinginpossessionofa stolenvehicle.

Themurderhasstirredupa newwave

ofangst,notonlyaboutjuvenilekillings

butalsoaboutcarjackings.OnFebruary7th

LoriLightfoot,Chicago’smayor,declared

that“there’sa veryrealandpervasivefear

ofcarjacking acrossourcity,ourregion

andourstate”,assheannouncedthatthe

city’s carjacking task­force, launched in

2020,willexpand itsoperation from 16

hoursa dayto24.Thespark,shesuggested,

wasyoungpeoplebeingoutofschooldur­

ingtheearlystageofthepandemic,and

driftingintocrimeoutofboredom.

Mostcitiesandthefederalgovernment

donotcountcarjacking separatelyfrom

otherformsofcartheft.Butstatisticsgath­

eredbypolicein Minneapolis, NewOr­

leans,Oakland andPhiladelphia,among

others,showsimilarsurgestothatinChi­

cago.InMinneapolis,thecrimeincreased

morethansix­foldfromNovember 2019 to

thefollowingyear,andhasrisenfurther

since. Therise  is  worrying  not  only  be­

causecarjacking  is  a  horrifying  crime  it­

self;itmayalso  be  contributing  to  rising

murderrates,since many stolen cars go on

tobeusedindrive­by shootings. One in 66

teenagersarrested  for  carjacking  is  mur­

dered inatypical  year,  according  to  the

UniversityofChicago’s Crime Lab.

MsLightfoot is not alone in suggesting

thatclosedschools may explain part of it.

Jacob Frey, the  mayor  of  Minneapolis,

madethesameargument in January. “With

covid,a lotofthe different things that had

kept[youngpeople] engaged, for lack of a

better word,were  shut  down,”  says  Tom

Dart, thesheriff  of  Cook  County,  which

containsChicago and most of its suburbs.

Data gatheredby  the  Crime  Lab  showed

thatarrestsofjuveniles for the crime more

thandoubledfrom  2019  to  2020,  whereas

thenumberofarrests  of  adults  increased

byonly7%.Many cars are abandoned fairly

quicklyafterbeing stolen, suggesting that

joyridingmaybe a motive.

Grandtheftthought oh

But other factors  are  also  at  play,  says

Stephanie Kollmann,  of  Northwestern

University.The availability of guns has in­

creased since the  pandemic  began.  Sec­

ond­handcarshave gone up in price. Other

sortsofrobberies have become trickier, as

peoplehavestayed at home. And although

a largenumberof arrests involve children,

thatdoesnotnecessarily  mean  that  chil­

drenarethemain criminals. According to

Mr Dart, gangs involved in carjacking often

use  children  as  getaway  drivers,  whereas

older  criminals  tend  to  do  the  actual  as­

sault and use the car later in a crime or try

to sell it. “The bad guys know that the pen­

alties for juveniles are pretty close to non­

existent,” he says, and so they use children

to do the riskiest parts of the job.

It is, statistically speaking, a fairly easy

crime to get away with. Only around 11% of

carjackings in Chicago resulted in an arrest

in  2020,  according  to  the  Crime  Lab—far

lower than the figures for robbery and bur­

glary. Carjacking is hard to police, says Mr

Dart, for various reasons. The victims rare­

ly  know  the  criminals.  Now  that  wearing

face­masks is normal, carjackers do not al­

ways  stand  out  until  the  last  minute.  And

proving that someone driving a stolen car

was involved in stealing it is difficult. Most

of the arrests come from forensic examina­

tion  of  recovered  vehicles,  rather  than

from catching criminals in the act.

Mr Dart hopes that technology will help

change  that.  Most  cars  sold  since  2015

come  with  gpstracking  systems,  but  it  is

often difficult for police officers to get ac­

cess  to  these  quickly.  Firms  insist  on  the

victims  making  the  request  themselves

and, even then, some are extremely reluc­

tant to hand out the data.

In  January  Mr  Dart  wrote  to  car  manu­

facturers demanding a more efficient sys­

tem for police to request tracking informa­

tion. “We know that these car manufactur­

ers have tools in their box that they could

utilise  that  can  really,  really  help  this,”  he

says. The advent of car immobilisers led to

a huge decline in car theft a generation ago,

he  points  out.  Already,  over  the  past  year,

greater use of tracking devices has led to an

increase in the proportion of cars that are

recovered, and a fall in the time to do that.

Cars  on  average  are  now  recovered  in  un­

der  100  hours,  compared  with  more  than

200 in 2020. 

Yet better technology will probably not

be enough on its own to bring the current

wave to an end. Some carjackers are so con­

fident  that  they  will  not  get  caught  that

they  post  bragging  videos  of  themselves

driving  stolen  vehicles  to  their  Snapchat

pages.  To  be  able  to  prevent  carjackings,

the police need to know in advance who is

most  likely  to  be  involved  and  how  to

check on them. 

Unfortunately,  American  police  forces

tend  to  be  more  reactive  than  proactive.

Just  45%  of  homicides  are  cleared  up  in

Chicago,  a  figure  not  much  worse  than  in

many  big  American  cities.  And  murders

usually  involve  people  who  know  each

other.  In  London  98%  of  murders  were

solved  in  2021,  and  unsurprisingly,  there

were far fewer of them. A serious effort to

counter  carjacking,  in  Chicagoand  else­

where, will require deep communitypolic­

ing and intelligence­gathering.n

CHICAGO

What a carjacking wave says about American policing

Asign of the times in the Windy City